For more information visit my personal website.

Career

• 2018 - : Research Fellow, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
• 2018: EPSRC Doctoral Prize scheme, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford
• 2014-2018: DPhil Mathematics, Pembroke College, University of Oxford
• 2013-2014: MSc Mathematical Modelling and Scientific Computing, Christ Church, University of Oxford
• 2010-2013: BA Mathematics, Christ Church, University of Oxford

Research

I am a member of the Biological Physics and Mechanics research group in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. I like to apply mathematics to gain insight into physical phenomena, combining analytical techniques, numerical simulations and desktop-scale experiments. My main interest is in elastic instabilities, such as the rapid ‘snap-through’ observed in the leaves of the Venus flytrap and when an umbrella flips upwards on a windy day. Other projects I have worked on include the behaviour of spherical shells under point indentation or ‘poking’, the interaction between elastic instabilities and viscous flows, and electrostatic ‘pull-in’ instabilities in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

Selected Publications

• M. Gomez. Ghosts and bottlenecks in elastic snap-through, PhD Thesis, University of Oxford (2018)

• M. Gomez, D. E. Moulton, and D. Vella. Dynamics of viscoelastic snap-through, J. Mech. Phys. Solids 124, 781-813 (2019) [arXiv preprint]

• M. Gomez, D. Vella and D. E. Moulton. Pull-in dynamics of overdamped microbeams, J. Micromech. Microeng. 28, 115002 [arXiv preprint] [Supporting data]

• M. Gomez, D. E. Moulton, and D. Vella. Delayed pull-in transitions in overdamped MEMS devices, J. Micromech. Microeng. 28, 015006 (2018) [arXiv preprint] [Supporting data]

• M. Gomez, D. E. Moulton, and D. Vella. Passive control of viscous flow via elastic snap-through, Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 144502 (2017)  [arXiv preprint] [Supporting data] 

• M. Gomez, D. E. Moulton, and D. Vella. Critical slowing down in purely elastic `snap-through' instabilities, Nature Phys. 13, 142-145 (2017) [arXiv preprint] [SharedIt] [Supporting data]

• M. Gomez, D. E. Moulton, and D. Vella. The shallow shell approach to Pogorelov’s problem and the breakdown of ‘mirror buckling’, Proc. R. Soc. A. 472, 20150732 (2016) [arXiv preprint]

• M. Gomez. Capillary sorting: thin-film flows of particles, Proc. WHOI Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Program (2016)